Use of aerial spraying, an operation also referred to as crop dusting, involves the aerial application of crop protection products onto an agricultural field by an aircraft. In addition to crop protection products, certain types of seed can also be sown by aerial applications. Land-based crop spraying operations typically use specialized vehicles. In either case, the air or land based vehicle includes a reservoir containing the material to be sprayed, which is pressurized and provided to one or more spray nozzles for distribution onto the ground.
When distributing crop protection products on a field, or in other applications, the amount of product that is deposited on the ground or on crops is customarily less than the amount of product provided through the sprayer(s) because a portion of the distributed product may drift and/or evaporate during deposition. More specifically, most distributed products such as pesticides, fertilizers and the like, are provided in liquid or granular form. These materials are distributed by spray nozzles that are arranged along a boom of an earth-moving agricultural implement or beneath the wings of an aerial deposition machine such as a fixed-wing airplane. Specifically regarding aerial deposition, agricultural aircraft are highly specialized, purpose-built aircraft that can carry as much as 800 gallons of crop protection product for depositions. Helicopters are sometimes also used. When depositing material on a crop during flight, the aircraft will typically try to fly low, for example, at a height of about 8 ft., while spraying the crop to try to minimize drift of the material deposited. Land-based spray systems may also include booms having spray nozzles arranged thereon at a distance from the ground. In either case, the sprayed material may drift and not reach its intended target. Drift, as is known, describes the drifting of sprayed particles due to wind and/or turbulence created by the aircraft or the wind away from the target, i.e. the crop, and into the wind or to adjacent areas of the field. As can be appreciated, drift can reduce the effectiveness of the crop spraying operation, can lead to detrimental effects due to over-spraying of areas where drift is deposited, or may deposit undesired products on adjacent crops, livestock grazing fields, populated areas and the like.